Podcast Host (0:03)

Welcome to Mariners Church Weekend Message Podcast. Inspiring people to follow Jesus and fearlessly change the world. Discover your purpose and get connected by visiting MarinersChurch.org or click the link in the show notes.

Eric (Senior Pastor) (0:28)

I'm really thankful for Jared and Kelly. Their faith, their courage and sharing, their story and God's grace in their life in the middle of such pain and beauty all mixed together. I'm thankful for a church that gathers around people like Jared and Kelly. And I know that in a room this size, there's people here who are filled with a season of pain right now. And at the end of the message, we're going to have a time of prayer and I encourage you to allow the church to pray over you in your season of pain. If we haven't met, my name is Eric. I'm the senior pastor here at Mariners. I'm glad you're with us. We're walking through the book of Ecclesiastes. It's a book in the Bible that is raw and honest about life, about the joys and the struggles and the pains of life. And Solomon is the author. His words are the book of Ecclesiastes, his wisdom writing. And last week we walked through chapter one and two. He would have approved, Solomon would have approved of Jim Carrey's opening monologue at the 2016 Golden Globe Awards. Because Jim Carrey with comedy is going to confront everyone, everyone who's about to receive an award that if you are expecting this award to give you real happiness, it's not going to do it. It was fascinating and courageous what Jim Carrey did. Take a look.

Jim Carrey (1:46)

Thank you. I am two time Golden Globe winner Jim Carrey. You know, when I go to sleep at night, I'm not just a guy going to sleep. I'm two time Golden Globe winner Jim Carrey going to get some well needed shut eye. And when I dream, I don't just dream any old dream. No sir. I dream about being three time Golden Globe winning actor Jim Carrey. Because then I would be enough. It would finally be true and I could stop this terrible search for what I know ultimately won't fulfill me. But these are important, these awards. I don't want you to think that just because if you blew up our solar system alone, you wouldn't be able to find us or any of human history with the naked eye. But from our perspective, this is huge.

Eric (Senior Pastor) (3:18)

Solomon would say of Jim Carrey that he was being really kind, that he's creating tension to get everybody's attention so that he can remind them that if you are Expecting this award to deliver real joy for you. It will fall short. But. But if you will receive all of this as a gift, you can actually enjoy. Solomon then turns the page to Ecclesiastes, chapter three. It's a very famous passage. There's been songs written about this passage. It's about all of the that we experience and how we can't control them. They're just thrust upon us. Chapter three, verse one. If you have the listening guide or the magazine that we provided for you, it's page 26. This is God's word. There is an occasion for everything and a time for every activity under heaven. A time to give birth and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to uproot. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to avoid embracing. A time to search and a time to count as lost. A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear and a time to sow. A time to be silent and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace. This is God's word. Now, notice Solomon does not provide commentary about all of the times. He doesn't say, here's how you should live in this time, and here's how you should live in this time. In this passage, he's just observing that life is going to be filled with all of these moments, that life is going to have these times thrust upon you. You cannot control the times that are thrust upon you. You can control how you respond to the times. I've thought a lot about time in recent days. My oldest daughter, Eden, graduates high school in just a couple of weeks, and she's starting USC in the fall fight on which I know for some of you, you finally love me now because she's going to usc. And so I thought about a lot about time because where did it go? How's it going so fast? My youngest daughter Evie's 16, sophomore in high school. She finishes her sophomore year this year, and she's spending the entire summer in Uganda with some of our global partners. So in seven weeks, Eden will graduate, and then Evie will the very next day fly to Africa for the entire summer. So we have this short amount of time left. Where has it gone? How did it go so quickly? Some of you remember when I came here as your senior pastor? My kids were so little. They were so tiny. And the time is just gone. Somebody asked me last week, how long have you been the pastor Mariners? I said, eight years. He was like, wow. I thought it was like four. I said, you come half the time. That's why you thought it was four. The time just goes by so fast. You may remember three years ago I gave this illustration. This was three years ago that I stood behind jars of marbles and said that your life, if you live to be 80 years old and one marble represents one week, that you have 4,160 weeks or 4,160 marbles. This is the totality of your life. And I said, hey, if you're a parent like I am, from the time your child is born until they graduate high school, you have 950 weeks. This is all that you have. And I know we were gonna be parents after our kids graduate high school, but this is the amount of time you have from birth till high school graduation. And three years ago, I stood in front of you and said, and so this is what I have left with my oldest daughter before she graduates high school. This is it. It's gone from this to this. It feels like yesterday that I gave that sermon, and now this is all that I have left. That's how fast the times go. You can't slow it down. You can't control it. You can control how you respond to it now. Fascinating. In the passage that we read, the first eight verses, there are 14 paradoxical statements that Solomon uses. And if you looked at it as a P and L statement, a profit and loss statement, you would see that 14 of the statements are positive and 14 are negative, that 14 would be in the black and 14 would be in the red. For example, we'll use white underlines because the black didn't come through on the screen. Here's the positives. Give birth, plant, heal, build, laugh, dance, embrace, search, keep, so speak. Peace, love. The positives. There's 14 positives and then there's 14 negatives. Die, uproot, kill, tear down, weep, born, Avoid embracing loss. Throw away, silence, hate, war. 14 positives, 14 negatives in a P and L sheet ends up to be. Okay, I'm really counting on you to pull this math off. 14 positives and 14 negatives equals zero. Good try. It's zero. It's zero. Solomon is saying that if you try to get gain out of life, in the end, all you have is nothing. Now, just like chapter one and two, he's trying to get your attention, that if you're looking at any of these moments to be your everything, in the end you'll have absolutely nothing. In fact, he'll say that in the very next verse. Let's keep reading. Verse 9. What does the worker gain? Remember that last week, the word for gain is profit or bottom line. So really, what is the bottom line from all of your struggles? 14 positives, 14 negatives. There's no bottom line. Now he's going to create some more tension in this passage. I want you to notice the paradoxes that you will see in this text. As I read it, we've already seen that the times are thrust upon us. We can't control them. We can control how we respond. But notice some other paradoxes. Verse 10 I've seen the task that God has given the children of Adam to keep them occupied. He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts. But no one can discover the work God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and enjoy the good life. It is also the gift of God. Whenever anyone eats, drinks and enjoys all his efforts, I know that everything God does will last forever. There is no adding or taken from it. God works so that people will be in awe of Him. Whatever is has already been and whatever will be already is. However, God seeks justice for the persecuted. I also observed under the sun there is wickedness at the place of judgment and there is wickedness at the place of righteousness. I said to myself, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, since there is a time for every activity and every work. I said to myself, this happens so that God may test the children of Adam and they may see for themselves that they are like animals. For the fate of the children of Adam and the fate of the animals is the same. As one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath. People have no advantage over animals since everything is futile. All are going to the same place, all come from dust and all return to dust. Who knows if the spirits of the children of Adam go upward and the spirits of animals go downward to the earth? I have seen that there is nothing better than for a person to enjoy his activities, because that is his reward for who can enable him to see what will happen after he dies? This is some paradoxes that we noticed as we were reading. You long for justice, yet there's injustice even in places where there should be justice. It's a messy complex Paradox of this world in which we live. You are created in the image of God. The text says that the children of Adam and we are part of the lineage of Adam. Adam was the first person that God created, placed in the Garden of Eden, and his image was placed on Adam. God's image is placed on you. We are image bearers of God and we die like animals. Solomon says. So we're above the animals because we have stewardship over the animals. We're created in the image of God, yet we die like animals. We also see in the text that we read the paradox that you have eternity in your heart, that you long for everlasting life, that there's something within you that longs for more. Yet we live in a world that is futile and all things around us are temporary and we ourselves are temporary. There's so many messy complexities of life in this text, which is why many people for years have loved the book of Ecclesiastes because it's raw and it's honest about how confusing at times and messy life is. A couple of months ago, Kay and I were at dinner with some good friends who very similar stage of life as we are. Senior graduating high school. They also, like us, have lost parents in recent years. And we talked about how this season, as we receive it as a gift from God, it still feels like a lot of loss. Our my daughter's about to graduate high school. Two years ago, my father passed away. Same for them, same for the other couple. And it's such a different season from when our children were small. When our children were small, everything felt so crazy and chaotic. Like how are we going to keep our head above water? But my parents were healthy. They could come and visit us. Everything was so different then compared to now. We still receive this season as a gift, but it feels at time like there's loss. The loss of a parent, a child going off to school. It feels like loss we shared over dinner. Really the best case scenario for us this point going forward is that we're going to grow old and become exceptional grandparents. And then we'll die. How's your steak? Does it taste good? That was dinner. And you could say, that's so dark. But Solomon would say you need that moment. You need to understand the reality of life so that you can receive it from him as a gift. There's a lot of things that Solomon says in this passage that he doesn't know. Now, I encourage you to listen to the if I Had More Time podcast. Cause we will point out that we now Know some of the questions that Solomon asked. Like he asked, I don't know, do people go to heaven? What happens to animals? Do people actually go upward? Well, we know because of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead that those of us who believe in Jesus, that we have everlasting life. Solomon is just being raw and honest. He's just asking questions and he's saying there's a lot of things he doesn't know. You always appreciate when someone's honest. I don't know this, but I do know this. Unlike the guy at work who knows everything, you don't really appreciate that perspective. Solomon says, I don't know some things. But then when someone admits that they don't know things, you really want to pay attention to what they say they do know. And Solomon says in this passage, he knows two things. Verse 12, I know that there is nothing better for them to rejoice and enjoy the good life. And then verse 14, I know that everything God does will last forever. This is also a paradox. We don't last forever. God lasts forever. And because God lasts forever, I know that the best thing for us is to enjoy the good life. So how can we enjoy the good life? How can you enjoy the times that are thrust upon you? You can't control them, you can't stop them or slow them down. How can you enjoy the times? Let me show you verse 11 through 14. Some wisdom that Solomon shares with us that I think will be really helpful for you. Verse 11. God has made everything appropriate in its time. The word for appropriate, if you want to circle it or underline it in your magazine or your Bible. Some translations have. Translate the Hebrew word beautiful. That God, who is eternal, is able to take all of the times and in its time, make it appropriate and make it beautiful. This is how you can enjoy life as a gift. Because even the difficult and painful seasons, if you believe this is. If you believe that God is eternal in some kind of way, he's gonna take even the messy, painful parts of your life and he's gonna work them together for appropriateness and beauty in its time. Sometimes we see that in this life. Other times we won't see it till everlasting paradise. But he's able to take even the pain and work them into beauty. If you had told me 10 or 12 years ago that my oldest daughter would be going off to college and loving school, there's no way I would have believed it. When she was early element, she hated school, hated reading, hated going to class, hated it so much we got Tutors. We tried to find what would help her. We finally took her to a specialist and she was diagnosed with dyslexia. And it was a really painful season trying to do homework at night and just took forever every night. It was so frustrating for her. It was so painful for her. And you know as a parent that there's no pain like seeing your kid in pain. No pain like it now, these years later. What was painful is actually part of the beautiful story. In fact, the painfulness of that moment makes the, the beauty of this moment even sweeter. God is able to work it all for some beautiful plan. Now some of you are in a painful moment. You've been in it for a while and you don't yet see the other side. I hope and pray for you. I would love for you to see it in this life. But even if you don't see it in this life, those of us who belong to him, he's going to work everything for beauty and in its appropriate nature, in its time. And so the way that you can enjoy life now is that you trust that you have a God who's able to make everything appropriate in its time. Notice this next phrase. This is really important. He has put eternity in their hearts. But no one can discover the work God has done from beginning to end. This is a very famous verse. In fact, if you have read philosophy before, perhaps you've heard people reference God shaped hole inside of every human that comes from that concept, comes from this verse right here that when God created you, he created you with a desire for eternity. He created you with a longing for Himself. And you're gonna try and fill this God shaped hole within you. You're gonna try and fill it. All of us are. At all times. We're trying to fill the void in our lives. And we're gonna try and fill it because we're human and fragile and we're sinful. We're gonna try and fill that void with finite objects. But a flow finite object can't fill the infinite void that God has given us. God given us an infinite longing for eternity and no finite object or person can fill it. Now some would say, why? Why would he give me a desire for something that nothing can fill? Well, look at the end of the verse. God works so that people will be in awe of Him. We can't discover the work, but God works so that people will be in awe of him. That God put within you because he loves you, a desire for Himself. You are going to try at times to fill that hole that void with other things and it won't work. God is frustrating you out of love so that you will look to him because only he can fill, only he can satisfy the deepest longings of your soul. God did all of this so that you would long for him, so that you would be in awe of GK Chester is then the author. He said that the man who's standing outside a brothel knocking on the door for a prostitute is really looking for God. He's empty. He's searching to fill the void in his life. And Chesterton said he's really looking for God. That right now, when you're looking for something to quench you, you may not realize it yet, but you're really looking. He put eternity in your heart. The way you can know, according to the philosopher, that there is a God is because nothing else in this world has satisfied you yet. And that means that your Creator created you for Him. Augustine, the early church father. He told a story in his famous work the Confessions that he was walking the streets of Rome one night with some friends who were philosophers and speakers orders just like he was. They were all rising intellectuals, they're all growing in their fame and, and they were philosophers, so they would debate everything. And they saw this drunk beggar on the side of the road and they stopped and essentially had a philosophical debate about the drunk beggar in front of the drunk beggar. Look at the human condition. How sad is the human condition that someone would think the bottle is going to satisfy them, but the bottle's only stealing from this guy. He thought the bottle would quench him. The bottle's only ruining him. How does this happen? How is it that humans will chase after things that ruin them? Augustine says that he went home that night and he tried to go to sleep, but he was restless because he realized he was just like the drunk beggar. Only instead of using the bottle to try to fill his own soul, he was using his desire for marriage, his intellect, his speeches, and he still was not satisfied. He actually concluded that the drunk beggar had it better than he had it, because at least the drunk beggar had the alcohol to numb him from his pain. And he had nothing to numb him from his pain. Augustine says that that was the moment when he realized that nothing in all of creation would be able to fill the God sized hole that is within him. And so he cried out to God. He wrote about this after and this is what he said. It's a famous passage from his Confessions. He said I was still eagerly aspiring to honors, money and matrimony. And you, God, did mock me. In pursuit of these ambitions, I endured the most bitter hardships in which you were being the more gracious, the less you would allow anything that was not you to grow sweet to me. Here's what he's saying. God, I felt like you were mocking me. I prayed for this, I wanted this. And even the things I wanted were good things. But you wouldn't allow those good things to grow sweet to me. But then I realized that God was being really gracious because if those things would grow sweet to me, then I wouldn't look for you. And you're the only one who can fill the the God size hole within me. So God is being really gracious to you. You may feel like he's being cruel. He's being really gracious to not let the blessings in this life be your everything because he wants to be your everything. And then when you are understanding that God works all things for your good and the frustration in you is really God pursuing you, then and only then can you look at the the next part of the verse. I know. So he does know this. There is nothing better for them than to rejoice and enjoy the good life. So there's a good life for you to enjoy. But notice this. It is not your everything. It is the gift. It's also the gift of God. Whenever anyone eats, drinks and enjoys all his efforts, that life can be a gift that you enjoy. If you look at the blessings of life as temporary gifts and not as the thing that's gonna quench you. Because God is already the thing that quenches you. The thrust of this text is to receive blessings as gifts, not as gods. This life is filled with lots of blessings. And the secret, according to the wisdom writer, for you to enjoy the good life is to receive the blessings as gifts from him, but not as your gods, as your little G gods. If you put pressure on those to satisfy you, you're gonna do what Jim Carrey was warning the audience of doing. This is not gonna be enough for you. But if God is your everything, then you can receive everything else as a gift. You have heard people say, and this is a nihilistic philosophy, essentially, that there's nothing else past this life. People will say, let's eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Essentially, there's nothing else but this. So let's live it up. Solomon has a different cut, a deeper cut. He says, let's eat, drink and be merry, for all of this is a gift. It's a Gift from God and enjoy. We can read that verse in light of the whole Bible. When you get to the Apostle Paul's writing in First Corinthians 15, which is what we looked at at Easter. It's the famous resurrection of Jesus from the dead passage. The apostle Paul is building common ground with the nihilist who says, this life